Recipes

Welcome to The Lunch Box recipe database. Many of these kitchen- and kid-tested recipes come to us courtesy of Boulder Valley School District where the chef and production teams have been refining their scratch cook recipes and expanding kids’ palates over the last seven years.

Farm to School Recipes (recipe numbers that begin with FS) were created with support from a USDA Farm to School Grant.

How to Use

Each recipe has been analyzed for the USDA meal components; that information can be found on the “Food Groups/Meal Patterns” tab.

From each recipe page you can scale the recipe, save it as either a pdf or Excel file to your computer, and view and save the nutrient analysis and the costing (which is based on Boulder’s current procurement).

To scale the recipe, change the “Standard Yield” number and click the “Scale” button. To return to the default standard batch size, click the “Reset” button.

Ingredient yield factors, where applicable, can be found at the top of the Recipe Instructions tab in “Pre-Preparation Instruction” fields where applicable.

The recipes are offered in their tested batch sizes. Although they are regularly used for meal counts in excess of 2,000, we recommend scaling batch sizes to be compatible with your equipment. Since seasonings are particularly affected by increased scaling, we suggest taste testing as you increase quantities.

The Lunch Box Recipes and Menus Webinar

SHARE WITH US

We hope to hear from our users and look forward to adding your scratch recipes and successful menu cycles to The Lunch Box database so that we can share your expertise and expand our school food community.